It only seems five minutes since Ibis Cycles revamped its Ripley 29er, with more mud clearance and two models – the Ripley and the Ripley LS (Long and Slack) for the rad among us, and later on there was a change to a Boost back end too. Well, it seems that everyone liked the Long and Slack (that’s a 428mm reach on a medium and 67.5° head angle ) so there’s only one Ripley now, and it’s all long and slack…

All this and STILL 2x compatibleSwoopy seatstays offer more mud clearance

For this new Ripley 3rd generation, the big news is even more mud clearance. Ibis is keen to show off that it now has room for Schwalbe 2.6in tyres and Maxxis 2.5WT on something like Ibis’ own 942rims. What’s of more interest to British riders is that that means even more mud room for those of us still running ‘old skool’ 2.35in tyres.

‘Ti Ho Silver’ looks rather elegant

As is common with an Ibis revamp, the bikes will come in two new colours – that Ibis is calling ‘Vitamin P’ (that’s the yellow one) and Ti-Ho Silver (we’ll let you guess that one).

That’s the Ripley that Bond would ride

There’s also a change in the lower linkage eccentric, to make it wider and subsequently stiffer tool

Redesigned for the new wave of wide rims – which Ibis conveniently makesWider lower bolt is said ti increase back end stiffnessBack end is all Boost nowThere’s still a (pretty sensible) mix of internal and external cabling on the Ripley

There you go – more of an evolution, but any extra mud room is welcome – especially as we’ve not even seen any of these newfangled 2.6in tyres…